'0 


^^  ADDRESS 


SEVENTH   SESSION 


liBicricau  potticultural  mt'nt^ 


HELD   IN   CLEVELAND,  OHIO, 


SEPTEMBER  7,  8,  9,  10,  1886. 


By  PARKER   EARLE, 


PRESIDENT  OF  THE   SOCIETV. 


PUBLISHED  BY  ORDER  OF  THE  SOCIETY 

BY 

LEAVENWORTH  &  BURR  PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 
DETROIT,   MICH. 

1886. 


ADDRESS 


SEVENTH    SESSION 


l^mmran  portuultiiral  ^uitti 


HELD    IN   CLEVELAND,  OHIO, 


SEPTEMBER  7,  8,  9,   10,  1886, 


By   PARKER    EARLE, 

PRESIDENT   OF  THE   SOCIETY. 


PUBLISHED  BY  ORDER  OF  THE  SOCIETY 

BY 

LEAVENWORTH  &  BURR   PUBLISHING  COMPANY, 

DETROIT,    MICH. 
1886. 


\   K 


*       printed  by 

Leavenworth  &  Burr  Publishing  Company, 

publishers  of 

The  American  Horticulturist, 

detroit,  mich. 

LOAN  JTACi" 

GIFT 


/72- 


American  gt^rtkultural  ^ocittvi. 

OFFICE  OF  SECRETARY, 

Greencastle,  Indiana,  October  4,  1886. 
The  following  report,  made  by  the  Committee  appointed  to  consider  the  recommendations 
made  by  President  Earle  in  his  address  before  the  American  Horticultural  Society  at  its  recent 
meeting  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  was  unanimously  adopted,  and  the  address  ordered  published  iox free 
distribution.  It  is  hoped  that  through  the  dissemination  of  this  able  address  great  encouragement 
shall  be  given  the  cause  of  American  Horticulture,  which  this  Society  is  laboring  to  build  up. 

Requests  for  copies  of  this  address,  accompanied  by  a  tivo  cent  siafnp  for  postage,  should  be 
addressed  to  the  Secretary,  as  above ;  also  any  inquiries  regarding  membership  in  the  Society,  etc. 

W.  H.'RAGAN, 
Secretary  American  Horticultural  Society. 


REPORT  OF  THE  COMMITTEE  ON  PRESIDENT  EARLE'S  ADDRESS. 

There  were  several  points  in  the  President's  address  which  the  Committee  deem  of  special 
importance  and  worthy  of  extended  notice,  and,  perhaps,  of  further  discussion  by  the  Society : 

The  establishment  of  a  Bureau  of  Pomology  in  connection  with  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
at  Washington ; 

The  creation  of  a  commission  of  pomological  experts,  to  investigate  the  fruits  and  culture  of 
foreign  countries,  especially  the  interior  regions  of  Europe  and  Asia,  with  the  view  of.  obtaining 
valuable  products  suited  to  the  wants  of  this  country' ; 

The  endowment  of  Experiment  Stations  in  connection  with  all  the  Agricultural  Colleges  of 
the  country ;  * 

The  Forestry  question.  To  call  the  attention  of  our  people  and  their  legislators  to  the  over- 
shadowing importance  of  some  practical  method  by  which  the  conservation  of  our  remaining 
forests  may  be  attained  and  their  destruction  prevented ;  and  also  to  the  need  of  some  uniform 
system  of  planting  for  the  future ; 

The  devising  of  some  practical  mode  for  the  better  and  more  equal  distribution  of  our  fruit 
crop  to  all  parts  of  the  country. 

In  addition,  the  Committee,  after  due  consultation,  decided  that  the  importance  and  value  of 
the  many  good  suggestions  contained  in  the  address  would  render  desirable  the  publication  of  not 
less  than  two  thousand  copies,  in  pamphlet  form,  for  general  distribution,  to  be  sent  to  the  leading 
horticultural  papers  of  the  country,  and  to  sach  other  persons  as  would  be  interested  and  benefitted 
thereby,  thus  creating  additional  interest  in  this  Society  and  its  work.  Perhaps  no  better  way  could  be 
devised  for  increasing  the  membership  in  the  Sdf i'ety  and  inducing  others  to  join  in  its  good  work, 
than  through  the  dissemination  of  this  address,  which  so  ably  sets  forth  its  aims  and  objects,  not 
only  for  the  welfare  of  its  members,  but,  as  well,  for  the  good  of  the  whole  country. 

Understanding  that  the  financial  condition  of  the  Society  would  not  warrant  the  undertaking 
of  this  work  without  some  additional  aid  from,  its  members,  several  of  the  Committee  expressed  a 
willingness  to  contribute  for  this  worthy  object  from  one  to  two  dollars-each,  and  it  was  believed 
that  upon  a  proper  presentation  of  the  subject,  other  members  would  feel  it  both  a  privilege  and 
pleasure  to  aid  the  Secretary  in  carrying  out  the  recommendations  of  the  Committee  for  this  pub- 
lication. Your  Committee  would  therefore  request  that  all  who  feel  disposed  to  help  in  this 
matter,  pay  at  once,  for  the  use  of  Secretary  Ragan,  such  sums  as  their  liberality  and  the 
importance  of  the  subject  may  suggest.  Mr.  Van  Deman,  having  expressed  a  willingness  to 
receive  subscriptions  for  this  purpose,  your  Committee  would  recommend  that  he  be  appointed  a 
committee  of  one  for  this  purpose,  with  such  assistants  as  may  be  necessary  to  the  successful 
carrying  forward  of  this  work. 

Geo.  W.  Campbell,  of  Ohio.  Chas.  A.  Green,  of  New  York. 

Prof.  James  Troop,  of  Indiana.  J.  Van  Lindley,  of  North  Carolina. 

Prof.  H.  E.  Van  Deman,  of  Kansas.  E.  T.  Hollister,  of  Missouri.     • 

Dr.  H.  E.  McKay,  of  Mississippi.  W.  P.  Misler,  of  Illinois. 

Frank  H.  Leavenworth,  of  Michigan.    Tuisco  Grenier,  of  New  Jersey. 

Committee. 

16n 


^IHHr 


PRESIDENT  EARLE'S  ADDRESS. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen — Members  of  the  American  Horticultural  Society  : 

It  is  with  much  pleasure  that  I  greet  you  to-day  in  this  seventh  meeting  of  our  Society  in  the 
enterprising,  hospitable  and  beautiful  city  of  Cleveland.  We  are  glad  to  meet  a  second  time  in 
the  great  State  of  Ohio — a  State  which  is  great  in  all  the  industrial  interests  of  the  time,  great  in 
agriculture,  and  great  in  horticulture.  And  we  are  especially  glad  to  shake  hands  in  this  city  so 
happily  planted  on  the  shores  of  an  inland  sea,  with  its  grand  environment  of  vineyards  and  orch- 
ards and  gardens.  For  wonderful  as  has  been  the  growth  of  Cleveland  as  a  manufacturing  and 
commercial  city,  its  horticultural  interests  have  kept  even  pace,  until  it  has  become  famous  as  the 
centre  of  a  rapidly-expanding  garden  industry,  and  celebrated  the  world  over  for  the  almost  unrivalled 
beauty  of  some  of  its  streets,  which  illustrate  so  well  the  possibilities  of  horticultural  adornment 
in  America.  We  meet  in  a  town  full  of  enterprise,  full  of  intelligence,  full  of  culture,  and  full  of 
horticulture. 

Our  last  meeting  was  held  close  by  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  in  a  city  abounding  in 
semi-tropical  luxuriance  and  perpetual  vernal  beauty,  in  connection  with  the  most  extensive  and 
most  comprehensive  exhibition  of  horticultural  products  ever  made  in  the  world — an  exhibition 
which  we  had  created — and  surrounded  by  all  the  vast  appliances  of  that  greatest  of  industrial 
exhibitions — the  World's  Exposition  in  New  Orleans.  From  the  protracted  labors — for  so  many 
of  us — connected  with  that  exhibition  we  have  taken  a  long  respite,  and  can  now  calmly  review 
that  work  of  many  months,  and  estimate  its  value.  And  now  as  I  look  back  upon  that  exhibition 
across  a  distance  of  eighteen  months,  with  its  fifty  thousand  plates  of  fruit  gathered  from  over 
fifty  States  and  nations,  from  all  the  climates  of  the  world  and  all  the  seasons  of  the  year;  with  its 
ten  thousand  transplanted  forest,  fruit  and  ornamental  trees  representing  eight  hundred  species  ; 
with  its  strange  flora  from  tropic  wildernesses  and  sterile  deserts  mingling  with  the  cultivated 
plants  of  Europe,  Asia  and  America,  I  re-assert  my  belief  that  you  who  shared  in  this  great 
labor,  and  all  horticulturists  who  witnessed  its  results,  will  join  in  the  opinion  that  the  work  which 
this  Society  did  in  organizing  the  International  Exhibition  of  Horticulture  at  New  Orleans  consti- 
tuted the  most  notable  horticultural  event  of  modern  times. 

This  Society  was  first  organized  to  meet  the   wants  of  the  fruit-growers,  gardeners,  forest 

•I* 
growers  and  lovers  dl  rural  art  in  the  States  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.     But  horticulturists  from 

most  of  the  States  of  the  East  and  of  the  West  soon   came  to  us  for  membership,  and  they  asked 

us  to  extend  our  territorial  limits  to  embrace  all  of  the  horticultural  interests  of  the  continent,  from 

ocean  to  ocean.     After  much  deliberation  this  was  done  at  our  large  meeting  in  New  Orleans,  so 

that  we  are  now  in  name,  as  we  had  been  for  years  before  in  membership  and  in  the  spirit  of  our 

work,  an  American  Society. 

At  one  of  our  earlier  meetings  a  good  friend   and   eminent  worker  for  horticulture  asked  in  a 

somewhat  critical  spirit  "  what  excuse  the  Mississippi  Valley  Horticultural  Society  had  to  give  for 

its  existence."    I  believe,  gentlemen,  that  the  excuse  has  been  rendered,  informally,  but  sufificient 


\    ^l 


6 

in  itself  to  answer  our  friend.  It  is  quite  possible  that  this  same  earnest  and  excellent  questioner. 
or  some  other  one,  has  asked,  or  may  ask  us  again,  what  reason  we  have  for  being  a  National,  or 
rather  an  American  Society  of  horticulture.  Let  us  hope  that  the  future  work  of  the  Society  will 
fully  justify  its  being  here,  with  its  great  name,  bearing  the  flags  of  two  Nations  in  its  hands. 

The  need  for,  and  the  possible  usefulness  of  large,  far  reaching  societies  is  very  apparent.  The 
reason  is  of  the  same  kind,  but  larger,  as  the  reason  for  the  existence  of  any  societies  at  all.  Soci- 
eties bring  people  together  for  the  comparison  of  views,  and  the  enlargment  of  views.  The  local 
society  gathers  and  formulates  the  experience  and  wisdom  of  the  community.  The  county  and 
district  associations  have  their  larger  important  work.  The  State  societies  stimulate  and  organize 
and  give  direction  and  tone  to  the  civilizing  work  of  horticulture  in  whole  commonwealths,  and 
great  States  feel  and  exhibit  the  ennobling  results  of  society  action.  There  is  scarcely  a  State  in 
our  Union  whose  whole  industrial  development,  whose  entire  civilization  to-day  does  not  show  the 
deep  imprint  of  organized  horticultural  activity.  It  is  seen  in  bending  orchards,  in  burdened  vine- 
yards, and  in  fruitful  gardens.  It  hangs  banners  in  every  park  of  town  or  city,  and  sings  paeans  in 
groves  and  forests  planted  by  man  or  saved  from  the  woodman's  axe.  It  babbles  in  fountains 
built  and  in  brooks  preserved,  and  its  beauty  shines  on  ten  thousand  green  and  shaded  lawns,  and 
in  every  window  where  flowers  bloom  and  vines  clamber.  If  you  could  take  out  the  influences  of 
horticulture  from  the  structure  of  our  civilization,  you  would  have  left  a  system  of  bare  walls, 
hard  forms,  and  coarse  living,  in  whose  presence  we  should  be  strangers  as  in  an  unknown  world. 

But  should  the  beneficent  results  of  horticultural  organization  stop  with  State  lines  ?  As  long 
as  our  interests  and  our  needs  reach  out  in  all  directions  through  the  land ;  as  long  as  our  lines  of 
commercial  interchange,  for  the  products  of  horticulture,  as  well  as  for  the  yields  of  the  loom,  the 
fruits  of  the  forge,  and  the  creations  of  the  brain  run  in  all  ways  across  the  continent,  from  the 
sea  to  the  sea,  and  from  the  tropics  to  the  frozen  zone,  will  societies  which  bring  us  into  larger 
acquaintanceships,  which  inform  us  of  larger  conditions,  which  stimulate  us  with  new  inventions, 
which  tempt  us  with  new  successes,  and  which  in  every  way  enlarge,  the  horizon  of  our  intelligence, 
be  found  useful  and  more  indispensable  to  the  horticulturist,  as  to  the  man  engaged  in  any  great 
work. 

We  are  constantly  dealing  with  new  factors  in  horticulture.  We  have  new  avenues  of 
exchange ;  we  have  new  plants,  new  flowers,  new  fruits ;  we  have  new  diseases,  new  insect  enemies, 
new  surprises  of  climate  ;  we  find  new  adaptations  for  old  things,  and  our  old  plans  broadening 
out  into  a  hundred  new  channels.  All  these  ever-varying  and  ever-enlarging  conditions  of  our 
old  institution  of  horticulture,  challenge  us  all  who  would  be  live  men  in  managing  horticulture  as 
a  business,  or  its  successful  apostles  as  a  refining  social  power,  to  adopt  every  agency  for  the 
enlargement  of  our  knowledge  of  the  facts  surrounding  us,  and  of  the  wider  relations  to  which 
our  interests  extend.  There  is  perhaps  within  our  reach  no  single  agency  which  does  so  much  to 
quicken  investigation,  to  bring  into  public  view  the  results  of  individual  research,  and  so  to 
enlarge  the  realm  of  our  knowledge,  as  the  organized  societies  of  the  time.  This  is  true  in  every 
field  of  moral,  social,  or  scientific  work.  It  is  no  less  true  in  the  domain  of  horticulture.  Horti- 
cultural societies  have  made  horticftlturists,  and  have  made  horticultural  literature. 

Horticulture  in  the  larger  definitions  which  men  give  the  term,  covers  a  wide  field.  It  has  out- 
grown the  restricted  definition  which  confined  it  to  the  cultivation  of  a  garden.  For  as  Lord  Bacon 
has  defined  gardening  to  be  "  the  art  which  doth  mend  nature,"  the  modern  horticulturist  has 
taken  for  his  task  all  of  the  sciences  and  arts  which  relate  to  the  garden,  the  orchard,  the  vineyard, 
and  to  the  forest  which  stands  behind  and  protects  all  these.  The  word  relates  to  all  that  embel- 
lishes the  home,  the  farm,  the  public  highway  or  public  park ;  and  to  all  that  affects  the  great 
industries  springing  from  vineyard,  garden  and  orchard.     There  are  great,  noble,  and  most  useful 


societies  of  the  broadest  scope  devoted  to  each  of  the  specialties  which  together  make  up  the  sys- 
tem of  horticulture.  These  societies  embrace  many  of  the  most  noted  and  most  noble  workers 
of  our  time.  But  as  all  of  these  special  interests  interlace  and  overlap  each  other  there  should  be 
some  ground  common  to  all  of  them,  where  all  may  mingle  and  in  many  ways  do  each  other  good. 
That  common  ground  is  the  horticultural  society  whose  sympathies  reach  out  and  embrace  them  all. 

Stated  in  a  general  way  horticulture  has  its  aesthetic  side  and  its  economic  side.  Which  has 
been  developing  the  most  rapidly  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  But 
both  of  these  branches  have  had  an  unfolding  in  this  country  that  is  quite  unparalleled,  and 
would  seem  marvelous  if  we  did  not  live  in  the  necromantic  age  of  steam  and  electricity.  We 
older  people  remember  how  bare  and  lean  were  the  surroundings  of  ninty-five  per  cent,  of  American 
rural  homes  thirty  or  forty  years  ago  ;  how  their  unshaded  and  weather-beaten  sides  met  all  the 
assaults  of  the  sun  and  the  shock  of  storms  without  the  intervention  of  screen  or  tree,  and  how  if 
there  was  a  bed  of  flowers  about  it  was  bashfully  hidden  in  some  corner  .as  if  afraid  of  getting 
in  someone's  way — save  only  the  unblushing  hollyhocks  which  in  solid  phalanx  near  the  front  door 
sometimes  defied  all  rebuke  ! 

If  you  travel  over  New  England,  or  the  middle  States,  or  the  broad  plains  of  the  West  to-day, 
and  count  the  thousands  of  mansions,  villas,  and  cottages,  in  suburbs,  in  towns  and  on  farms, 
which  are  embowered  in  shade  and  sheltered  from  winds,  with  bright  lawns  and  blooming  flower 
beds  around  them ;  if  you  will  consider  the  sheltering  roadside  maples,  the  shaded  school-house 
grounds,  the  hundreds  of  handsome  parks  ;  and  how  everywhere  the  love  of  beauty  in  the  soul  of 
man  and  woman  is  in  full  blossom  in  tree  and  plant,  in  lawn  and  architecture,  you  will  be  certain 
that  the  aesthetic  side  of  our  horticultural  education  has  been  advancing  at  a  wonderful  rate.  And 
this  is  the  side  of  it  that  is  undoubtedly  of  the  most  importance  to  the  interests  of  the  people ;  for 
far  more  is  it  essential  that  the  love  and  longing  for  beauty  in  the  hearts  of  men  be  stimulated  and 
gratified,  than  that  we  should  have  great  variety  on  our  tables,  or  profits  from  orchard  or  garden 
in  our  pockets.  ^ 

On  the  aesthetic  side,  horticulture  allies  itself  with  all  the  good  influences  which  elevate  the 
race.  It  co-operates  with  education,  with  art,  with  moral  culture,  with  religion  in  expanding 
whatever  is  pure  and  best  in  human  nature.  On  its  economic  side  it  is  growing  into  some  of  the 
large  industries  of  the  time.  Consider  what  a  business  the  culture  of  flowers  has  become  within 
a  generation.  The  commerce  in  cut-flowers  alone  amounts  to  millions  of  dollars  annually  in  some 
of  our  great  cities.  And  flower  culture  as  a  business  is  growing  rapidly  in  all  of  our  American 
cities.  Large  capital  is  invested  in  it,  and  tens  of  thousands  of  persons  earn  their  daily  bread  in 
producing  and  vending  products  which  minister  chiefly  to  the  sense  of  beauty. 

« 

A  history  of  the  nursery  business  in  this  country  would  be  full  of  surprises.  Think  of  the  days 
when  that  quaint  missionary  of  horticulture  and  religion,  "Johnny  Apple  Seed,"  wandered  through 
the  wilderness  of  Ohio,  scattering  benedictions  from  his  generous  pockets.  He  was  a  veritable 
prophet  of  the  great  nurseries  and  orchards  of  to-day.  He  is  perhaps  the  most  romantic  figure  in 
horticultural  history.  We  only  know  him  under  the  odd  soubriquet  which  the  rustic  speech  of  that 
day  gave  him — but  that  name  should  be  mentioned  with  reverence  among  the  benefactors  of  the 
West.  And  the  horticultural  State  of  Ohio,  whose  orchard  products  have  been  estimated  at  ten 
millions  of  dollars  of  annual  value,  would  do  herself  honor  by  somewhere  building  a  suitable 
monument  to  the  memory  of  one  who,  while  he  was  scattering  fragments  of  religious  books  among 
the  pioneers  of  a  new  land,  planted  apple  seeds  in  every  favoring  spot. 

A  half  century  since,  how  few  and  small  were  the  American  nurseries,  while  now  the  great 
nurseries  are  numbered  almost  by  the  hundred,  and  the  small  ones  no  man  has  counted.  And 
each  one  is  fostering  the  infant  stages  of  landscape  and  floral  beauty,  and  the  germs  of  golden 


8 

orchard  harvests  in  the  future,  or  of  forests  that  shall  shelter  and  protect  a  needy  land.  The 
business  of  the  nurseryman  has  become  one  of  great  magnitude  and  commercial  importance,  and 
upon  its  continued  growth  and  prosperity  depends  much  of  the  happiness,  the  civilization,  and  the 
future  glory  of  the  American  States.  All  honor  and  profit  to  the  energetic  men  who  have  built 
up  this  noble  business,  and  who  are  making  this  happy  country  of  ours  the  most  fruitful  and  the 
most  fiowerful  of  any  land  under  the  sun. 

Perhaps  no  industrial  expansion  of  the  time  shows  more  remarkable  results  than  the  business 
of  American  fniit  culture.  A  single  generation  has  witnessed  a  revolution  in  the  habits  of  living  of 
the  American  people.  The  rare  luxuries  of  thirty  years  ago  have  become  the  everyday  necessities 
of  American  tables,  and  the  health-giving  and  refining  influences  of  general  and  abundant  fruit 
supplies  are  working  their  noticeable  effect  upon  the  physique  and  character  of  the  nation. 

Thirty  years  ago  the  daily  receipts  of  strawberries  in  the  city  of  Chicago — now  the  second 
greatest  fruit  market  in  the  world — could  all  have  been  carried  in  one  wagon  at  one  load,  and  it 
would  not  have  been  a  large  load  either.  Now  whole  railway  trains  are  engaged  to  carry  the  daily 
supply  of  that  market,  which  often  amounts  to  three  hundred  tons,  and  sometimes  to  twice  that 
quantity.  A  similar  increase  of  supply  has  taken  place  in  most  of  the  markets  of  the  country. 
The  production  of  the  Wilson  strawberry  was  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  in  strawberry  culture 
and  I  may  add,  of  small  fruit  gardening;  for  all  branches  of  the  business  have  been  stimulated 
and  carried  along  by  the  tide  of  enthusiasm  which  has  planted  strawberry  fields  all  over  the  conti- 
nent, and  covered  the  tables  of  the  rich  and  of  the  poor  alike,  with  their  dishes  of  fragrance  and 
crimson  beauty.  Thirty  or  forty  years  ago  it  would  be  safe  to  say  that  all  the  strawberries  mar- 
keted in  one  day  in  the  United  States  could  have  been  gathered  by  a  force  no  larger  than  I  have 
seen  bending  over  the  smiling  rows  of  a  single  plantation.  Now  there  are  probably  not  less  than 
a  quarter  of  a  million  harvesters  engaged  in  gathering  this  delightful  fruit  for  market  growers. 
Then  the  season  of  this  fruit  was  limited  to  the  three  or  four  weeks  of  its  ripening  in  each  locality  ; 
now  by  the  help  of  railways  and  refrigerator  transportation  it  extends  over  four  or  five  months  of 
the  spring  and  summer;  and  strawberries  are  sometimes  transported  a  distance  equal  to  that  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  seas. 

Thirty  years  ago,  the  supply  of  peaches  for  that  same  wonderful  fruit  market  of  Chicago 
nearly  all  came  from  one  orchard,  and  that  not  a  large  one.  That  orchard  has  long  since  died, 
and  its  successors  have  grown  and  borne  and  died;  but  it  now  takes  contributions  from  all  the 
orchards  of  the  South  and  West,  and  on  the  shores  of  the  great  lakes ;  from  the  fruitful  Delaware 
peninsula,  and  from  the  distant  valleys  of  California,  to  supply  the  Chicago  market  and  its  depen- 
dencies with  this  one  most  delicious  fruit  of  summer. 

i^  How  much  more  than  a  generation  since  was  it  that  the  principal  vineyards  of  this  country 
clung  along  a  few  miles  of  bluff  on  the  Ohio  river  ?  There  was  then  no  good  grape  which  the 
people  generally  could  grow.  But  a  great  want  brought  its  remedy,  as  it  often  does.  The  occa- 
sion brought  the  man.  The  man  lived  in  classic  Concord,  where  so  many  good  and  wise  men 
have  lived.  For  there,  a  sagacious,  patient  experimenter  produced  from  the  native  wildings  of 
Massachusetts  that  most  valuable  grape  for  the  millions,  the  magnificent  Concord.  May  perennial 
honors  crown  the  good,  grey  head  of  the  producer  of  the  Concord  grape,  and  of  all  such  unselfish 
benefactors  of  the  race.  For  millions  of  people  now  eat  grapes  grown  on  their  own  vines  that 
could  not  have  done  so  but  for  such  a  labor.  With  the  introduction  of  the  Concord  a  new  era  in 
grape  growing  was  begun.  Concord  vines  were  plahted  in  the  East  and  in  the  West;  in  the 
extreme  South  and  in  the  extreme  North.  Farmers  and  villagers,  and  the  crowded  denizens  of 
cities  planted  grape  vines  ;  they  not  only  planted  the  vines,  but  they  gathered  the  shining  clusters 
of  fruit,  in  town  and  country,  on  hillside  and  plain,  all  over  this  broad  land.  Stimulated  by  this 
great  success  a  hundred  others  have  produced  good  grjipes  of  every  complexion,  variety  and  qual- 


ity  under  the  sun  ;  and  there  is  no  locality  so  bleak  or  so  barren  but  can  select  one  or  more  varieties 
of  American  grapes  which  will  flourish  under  its  peculiar  conditions.  So  good  grapes  can,  with  a 
little  simple  care,  be  everywhere  grown,  in  all  the  States  and  territories  and  provinces  of  the  con- 
tinent, and  by  every  person  who  owns  a  rod  of  land — good,  ripe,  sweet,  beautiful  grapes  that  shall 
gladden  every  home. 

And  so,  by  the  persistence  and  devotion  of  horticulturists  this  great  land  has  become  full  of 
fruits.  They  are  everywhere,  at  all  seasons,  and  within  the  reach  of  all.  Few  tables  need  go 
without  them  and  few  mouths  hunger  long  for  them,  for  they  have  become  cheaper  than  bread 
and  meat  in  most  of  our  markets. 

And  yet  it  takes  toil  and  skill,  and  the  patient  attack  of  many  difficulties  to  produce  good  fruits, 
and  to  make  them  abundant.  It  seems  to  have  been  determined  by  Providence  that  the  conquests 
of  man  over  nature  may  become  very  complete,  but  that  the  varied  labor  of  these  conquests  shall 
develop  and  educate  every  faculty  of  the  man  himself.  We  cannot  reap  the  golden  harvest  of 
orchard  and  vineyard  without  we  have  been  found  worthy  in  the  patient  labor  and  skill  with 
which  we  have  met  and  overcome  the  endless  difficulties  which  hedge  them  round.  For  success- 
ful horticulture  illustrates  anew  the  old  "  irrepressible  conflict  "  between  good  and  evil.  Very 
luckily  for  the  general  good,  the  pursuit  of  our  art  carries  with  it  a  certain  fascination  for  its  devo- 
tees— it  generates  an  enthusiasm  which  pushes  its  followers  along  over  every  frowning  difficulty, 
until  the  amount  of  our  accomplishment  is  sometimes  greater  than  we  desire,  or  than  is  profitable 
to  ourselves.  Many  as  are  the  enemies  to  conquer  in  every  line  of  horticultural  effort — and  some- 
times it  seems  as  if  all  the  forces  of  nature  were  combining  against  our  success,  when  insects 
deface  and  blights  wither  and  drouths  burn  and  frosts  destroy — yet  the  ingenuity,  the  energy,  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  horticultural  producer  are  found  sufficient  in  most  cases  to  overcome  all  obstacles 
so  far  as  to  provide  enough,  and  too  much.  In  fact  the  difficulties  of  production  have  been  so  far 
overcome  that  most  branches  of  the  business  seem  to  be  suffering  from  iw^r-production. 

Looking  at  this  question  from  the  standpoint  of  a  commercial  grower  of  fruits,  it  appears  to  me 
that  one  of  the  chief  problems  for  our  fraternity  to  solve  is  how  to  distribute  our  products  more 
perfectly  —how  to  reach  wider  markets.  This  involves  superior  methods  of  handling  and  packing, 
and  superior  means  of  transportation.  There  is,  as  yet,  no  absolute  over-production  of  good 
fruits  ;  but  there  is  defective  distribution.  There  were  not  too  many  apples  grown  in  New  York 
and  Michigan  and  Missouri  last  year,  although  apples  sold  in  many  of  our  large  markets  for  prices 
far  below  the  possibilities  of  profit ;  but  our  system  of  distribution  left  half  of  the  families  in 
America  with  few  or  no  apples  to  eat  all  of  last  winter.  When  one  or  more  barrels  of  apples  go 
into  each  farm  house  and  laborer's  cottage  all  over  the  South,  to  each  miner's  cabin  among  the 
mountains,  and  to  all  the  new  homes  building  on  the  wide  plains  of  the  West,  the  supply  of  apples 
will  not  be  found  too  large.  There  have  not  been  too  many  oranges  grown  in  Florida  and  Califor- 
nia for  the  last  few  years,  though  many  orange  growers  have  got  little  profit  from  their  crops ;  for 
three  quarters  of  the  people  within  a  practicable  commercial  distance  of  these  orange  orchards 
have  eaten  almost  no  oranges  in  these  years.  If  all  the  American  people  were  to  eat  apples  and 
oranges  daily  in  their  season,  the  quantity  produced  would  not  supply  their  wants.  A  more 
thorough  system  of  distribution  with  the  improved  transportation  facilities  now  at  command  will 
render  this  approximately  possible.  There  is  no  fruit  produced  in  our  country  so  tender  or  per- 
ishable but  that  it  can  be  carried  and  marketed  half  way,  if  not  all  the  way  across  the  continent, 
when  the  best  facilities  are  used  ;  while  our  most  important  fruits  can  successfully  be  placed  in 
the  great  markets  of  Europe. 

Hence  it  appears  to  me  that  we  are  not  producing  too  much,  but  are  marketing  too  poorly, 
and  that  the  question  of  the  distribution  of  our  horticultural  products  is  the  one  most  important  to 


A 


lO  • 

the  commercial  grower.  Its  successful  solution  will  result  in  infinite  benefits  to  the  people  who 
consume,  and  in  living  profits  to  the-  often-discouraged  class  who  produce.  This  problem, 
together  with  those  relating  to  the  difficulties  of  production,  will  keep  every  fruit-grower  wide 
awake  and  on  the  alert,  who  attempts  with  some  spirit  to  master  the  business  which  he  has 
adopted.  There  is  no  obstacle  in  the  way  which  energy — intelligent  energy — cannot  overcome, 
and  I  confidently  expect  to  see  the  schemes  of  distribution,  preservation,  and  marketing  now  in 
progress  so  far  perfected  that  every  worthy  fruit-grower  will  be  constantly  challenged  by  the  pro- 
tits  within  his  reach  to  do  better  work  and  to  master  the  difficulties  of  his  situation. 

It  is  with  much  pleasure  that  I  recognize  the  improved  relations  between  the  horticultural 
fraternity  and  that  department  of  the  general  Government  which  touches  our  immediate  interests. 
It  was  with  peculiar  satisfaction  that  I  saw  the  present  administration  call  to  its  aid,  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  a  leading  member  and  founder  of  our  own  Society — a  gentleman  of  such  eminent 
ability  and  knowledge  in  all  hnes  of  agriculture  and  horticulture,  and  one  possessed  of  such  enthu- 
siasm for  all  good  work — as  is  our  distinguished  friend,  the  Commissioner  of  Agriculture.  Gov- 
ernor Colman's  vvork  in  the  department  demonstrates,  what  we  all  believe  of  him,  his  eminent  fit- 
ness for  the  office.  And  what  he  has  done  shows  that  he  does  not  forget  any  of  the  interests  of 
horticulture.  He  is  originating  new  methods  of  helping  our  cause,  and  he  asks  his  old  friends 
for  such  suggestions  as  he  can  make  useful.  It  seems  to  me  a  fortunate  time  for  us  to  ask  the 
aid  of  the  Government  for  certain  important  matters  which  cannot  be  accomplished  without  its 
powerful  assistance.  Now,  while  we  have  a  "  friend  at  court,"  of  whose  sympathy  and  influence 
we  are  sure,  it  is  a  favorable  occasion  for  us  to  consider  these  questions. 

A  good  beginning  has  been  made  in  the  creation  of  a  Division  of  Pomology  by  an  act  of  the 
last  Congress,  but  no  sufficient  provision  was  made  for  its  establishment  upon  a  comprehensive 
working  basis.  It  is  evident  that  the  extent  of  the  useful  work  which  such  a  bureau  could  do 
was  never  considered  by  Congress,  as  but  little  can  be  accomplished  with  the  small  sum  appropri- 
ated. In  a  country  whose  annual  production  of  fruits  exceeds  a  hundred  million  dollars  of  value, 
the  helpful  work  which  such  a  bureau  could  do  would  abundantly  justify  a  liberal  expenditure  for 
its  maintenance.  For  instance,  the  establishment  of  a  system  ot  fruit  crop  reports,  covering 
our  whole  territory,  to  be  tabulated  and  sent  out  monthly,  or  oftener,  would  have  exceeding 
value  for  all  fruit-growers,  and  for  all  who  are  commercially  interested  in  our  pomological  har- 
vests. We  have  long  needed  such  a  system  of  reporting.  It  is  almost  indispensable  to  any  intel- 
ligent handling  of  the  crops  we  grow.  But  such  a  system  cannot  be  established  outside  of  a  Gov- 
ernment bureau.  This  is  but  one  of  many  useful  services  which  a  pomological  bureau  could  ren- 
der, if  it  was  well  endowed  and  well  directed. 

The  establishment  of  Experiment  Stations  in  connection  with,  or  under  the  direction  of  our 
agricultural  colleges,  is  another  work,  important  alike  to  every  interest  of  both  agriculture  and 
horticulture,  which  the  Government  should  not  longer  delay  the  commencement  of.  An  excellent 
bill  covering  these  wants  was  before  Congress  last  year,  which  I  think  had  the  general  endorse- 
ment of  our  agricultural  colleges  and  societies.     What  can  we  do  to  help  this  measure  along .'' 

We  need  a  more  thorough  research  than  has  yet  been  possible  into  the  conditions  surrounding 
successful  fruit  culture  in  Russia,  China,  and  other  inter-continental  countries,  whose  severe  cli- 
mates correspond  to  our  own  interior  cHmates,  which,  as  we  know,  prove  disastrous  to  nearly  all 
varieties  of  fruit  originating  in  countries  under  the  influence  of  the  sea.  The  fruits  of  Central 
Russia  have  endured  the  test  of  centuries  of  winters  and  summers,  worse  perhaps,  than  our 
country  can  parallel,  and  they  are  grown  in  great  quantities  in  a  latitude  six  hundred  miles  far- 
ther north  than  that  of  Quebec.  And  there  almost  under  the  Arctic  Circle,  has  been  building  up 
through  hundreds  of  bitter  winters  and  arid  summers  a  race  of  fruits,  from  which  all  weakness  has 
been  bred  out,  the  fittest  qualities  only  surviving.     If  these  varieties  are  not  all,  or  many  of  them, 


•  II 

as  good  in  quality  as  our  modern  tastes  demand,  they  at  least  will  furnish  the  foundation  for  new 
and  hardier  races  of  fruits  that  will  withstand  the  trying  climatic  vicissitudes  covering  half  of 
this  continent,  under  which  our  older  varieties,  cannot  be  successfully  grown.  Is  there  any  pomo- 
logical  question  more  important  than  this  ?  We  want  to  know  more  about  Russian  and  Asiatic 
fruit  culture.  We  want  to  know  all  about  it  that  years  of  investigation,  by  a  competent  commission, 
can  secure.  This  is  certainly  a  work  for  the  Government  to  undertake.  The  work  has  been  nobly 
begun  by  the  enterprise  of  two  honored  pomologists,  whose  labors  can  not  be  too  highly  com- 
mended ;  for  Mr.  Gibb  and  Prof.  Budd  have  already  given  the  country  a  service  which  entitles  them 
to  great  honors.     The  Government  should  take  up  and  complete  their  work. 

But  the  most  important  subject  to  which  we  can  call  the  attention  of  the  Government  is  the 
work  of  forestry.  This  is  the  one  grand  question  that  overtops  all  other  questions  of  public  econ- 
omy to-day.  The  rapid  destruction  of  the  vast  forest  areas  of  this  continent  has  unbalanced  the 
forces  of  nature.  Our  seasons  have  changed  their  temperate  courses.  DestruQtive  floods  are 
followe'd  by  consuming  drouths.  Our  crops  become  more  uncertain.  Our  climate  becomes  full  of 
extremes.  The  situation  is  one  that  challenges  the  attention  of  every  thoughtful  man,  and  that 
every  year  of  timber  waste  makes  worse.  The  forests  of  Europe,  so  far  as  saved  at  all,  have  been 
largely  preserved  and  built  up  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  Government.  And  we  must  look  to  the 
State  Governments  and  to  the  National  Government  for  the  saving  and  the  upbuilding  of  our  for- 
est interests.  What  woodlands  we  have  should  be  preserved  by  absolute  force  where  the  Govern- 
ment has  the  right,  and  by  all  encouraging  legislation  where  it  has  no  control.  And  by  every  poss- 
ible measure.  State  and  National,  should  forest  planting  be  encouraged.  There  are  very  few  if  any 
of  the  states  but  what  have  passed  the  limit  of  safety  in  the  work  of  deforestation.  I  cannot  here 
argue  this  question  at  length,  but  a  single  fact  will  illustrate  the  imminent  necessity  for  action. 
This  State  of  Ohio  where  we  meet  to-day,  in  1853  had  54  per  cent,  of  its  surface  covered  with  forest. 
In  1884,  but  17  per  cent,  of  the  area  remained  in  timber.  Thus  in  a  single  generation  two-thirds 
of  all  the  forest  in  existence  at  the  beginning  of  the  period  had  been  destroyed,  and  but  one-sixth 
of  the  surface  of  the  State  is  now  protected  by  the  garments  with  which  God  covered  these  hills 
and  plains. 

Do  you  wonder  that  the  valley  of  the  Ohio  is  almost  annually  desolated  by  inundation  ?  That 
climates  change,  and  always  for  the  worse  ?  That  winters  are  harder,  and  summers  hotter,  and 
drouths  more  destructive  ?  Do  you  wonder  that  there  are  no  more  sparkling  brooks  that  run  and 
sing  all  summer,  but  only  muddy  torrents,  and  the  dried  up  beds  of  streams?  The  great  conser- 
vative equalizing  power  of  the  forest  is  gone.  The  State  of  Ohio  would  seem  to  be  making  hasty 
strides  towards  the  agricultural  condition  of  Arabia.  And  Ohio  stands  for  America.  I  quail  before 
the  inexorable  penaliies  which  nature  has  in  store  for  all  states  and  peoples  who  will  ruthlessly 
destroy  so  glorious  a  heritage  of  forest  as  the  American  people  once  possessed.  Without  forests  no 
successful  agriculture  is  possible,  and  no  high  civilization  can  be  maintained.  It  surely  becomes 
the  duty  of  every  intelligent  citizen  to  use  all  available  influences  through  state  and  national  legis- 
lation, and  bv  the  diffusion  of  light  among  the  people,  to  save  what  remains  of  our  American  wood- 
lands, and  to  grow  new  forests  over  the  vast  treeless  plains  where  they  are  both  an  economic 
necessity,  and  an  indispensable  factor  of  a  profitable  agriculture. 


^.  ^w 


